An interview that was done in 1979 with Hazel Clarissa Randall Wells

PASSING IT ON

A Collection of Memories

By Riverheaders, Past & Present

Edited
by Justine W. Wells

1993
Ridge, Richmond Hill, And the Randalls

The following
taped interview with Hazel Clarissa Randall Wells was conducted on
December 9, 1979 in her mobile home in Glenwood, Riverhead, by her
son and daughter-in-law Kenneth and Justine Wells. The first part
dealing mainly with her recollections of Ridge and Shoreham was
recorded for a Stony Brook University student, but the remainder was
done for her descendants and any others interested in late 19th
and early 20th century life on Long Island. She was 84
years old.

How far back
do you want me to go? My father of course was born and brought up in
the neighborhood (Ridge). When he married he went to New York and I
was born in Queens County. After I had graduated from grade school,
he had trouble with his eyes. He was an architect and he came back
to the farm at the Ridge, the Randall farm, the ancestral farm. He
used to raise cows in the summer to sell milk in Shoreham. And he
probably sold vegetables over there too, but I don’t remember that
part of it.

In 1908, it must
have been that we moved back to Ridge, and we lived on Uncle
Charlie’s farm on the north side of Whiskey Road. Not too far west
of what they call Randall Road. Yes, it’s where Leisure Village is
now, in that corner. We lived there for, I don’t know, maybe two
years. I’ve forgotten just how long we were there. But the house
was in terrible condition; nobody had lived in it for some time.
The roof leaked and everything, so after awhile we went to live in
part of Uncle John’s house, which was east of Randall Road on that
corner where there’s a jag in Whiskey Road.

I think it was while
we were on Uncle Charlie’s place that we carted milk to Shoreham.
And my sister and I did it. She was seven years younger than I. We
had a donkey and we had a cart and the donkey would go right along,
as long as we’d sing. When we quite singing, he’d stop. So we sang
all the way to Shoreham and back again. Sometime before daylight
we’d start, because it was light by the time we got to Shoreham.
There was one particular spot on that road I remember, and I think
it’s still there. Two huge oak trees on the left side of Randall
Road half-way to Shoreham. We though that was the ideal location
and when we got old we were going to build and live in that spot.
(chuckle)

But we had a song we
used to sing (she sings this): We are both the Randall girls you’ve
heard so much about/ People stop and stare at us whenever we’re
about/ Oh we’re noted for our winsomeness and _?_things we do/ Most
everybody likes us, we hope you’ll like us too. (big chuckle) And
we sang that to the donkey. And I remember when we got into the
village of Shoreham, it was mostly uphill and down dale. It was
just tremendous hills some of it. And the donkey refused to go up
those hills, so we got out and pushed, the cart and the donkey and
the milk up the hills. (chuckle) When we delivered at the houses, I
don’t remember who any of them were. Summer houses? Well, they
were pretty good size, owned by rich people from New York. They had
a lot of caretakers there the year round. Maybe their husbands
worked in New York and they came out weekends, I don’t know. Oh no,
no farms, no farms, just hills and woods.

Then the station.
We had to pass the station to get into Shoreham of course, because
that was on the main highway. Yes, Shoreham actually had a railroad
station; I’ve got a picture of it here. And Sadie Randall was the
station mistress for years. And she married a Robinson who was also
a station agent somewhere else. The railroad ended at Wading River,
Shoreham was next to the last stop. And I used to come home once in
a great while when I was in high school. See I went back to
Richmond Hill to high school, and I went on the train when I went.
And Uncle Asa always met me at Jamaica and took me home from there
on the trolley car. Didn’t have such a thing as a car. I stayed
with Uncle Asa, my father’s brother, all the time I was in high
school, four years. And my grandmother lived with him, and Aunt
Hannah. Aunt Hannah was a hand-down from the farm, no relation at
all. Her name was Woodhull and she lived with Grandma Randall to
take care of her. Did I come home to Ridge every weekend? Oh mercy,
I came home maybe for Thanksgiving and Christmas like the kids do
for college now. And for Easter when there was a long vacation.
But otherwise I just stayed right here. Oh, my milk-carrying days,
they were in the summer. I did it through high school.

Shoreham was all
dirt roads. I don’t think Route 25 was anything but dirt. Oh there
were probably fifty on our milk route. We put the milk in bottles.
Of course it wasn’t pasteurized, it was just raw milk. And how we
kept it cool, I don’t even remember. It was quite a ways to
Shoreham, two or three miles, but it was always fresh, we always got
it there by daylight. My father used to get up two o’clock in the
morning to milk, so’s to get it all ready to go.

Cousins had the post
office. It was in the village that’s all I remember. It was on the
level stretch before you began the hilly part and down the hollow.
And Mealie Overton, Amelia her name was, Mealie and her sister Mabel
ran the post office and I can remember going there lots of times.
That was on the west side of that main street. I don’t know whether
it’s still there. I’m sure they were related to me, just how close
I don’t know. They were own cousins to Sadie, and I’m sure they
were Randalls because they went to the Randall picnic, but how I
can’t say. But they are the only ones that I actually knew that
lived right in Shoreham. It was about like Aquebogue Post Office
used to be, a few letter boxes. I doubt very much that the village
was incorporated yet. 1913? That would have been after I was
there.

Of course you know
that Shoreham has changed its name several times. It used to be
Woodcliff at one time. It was Warden Cliff, and it was Woodville at
one time, because they used to cut cordwood and that’s the winter
job that they had. They cut cordwood and took it up the beach and
had boats come in there on one tide and out on the next. I guess
they came in at high tide and loaded it at low and the next high
tide they went out. And took firewood in New York City. That was
at Shoreham, Woodcliff!

Tesla’s Tower? You
know where there’s a photo shop, yes Peerless Photo, it was about in
there. They call it Tesla Street or something, and that’s where it
was. That’s why it’s called that. It was for communication to
Europe, it was the first intercontinental station…radio. Yes,
before RCA (Radio Corporation of America). Tesla was the maker.
I’ve got a picture of it. It was a big thing, 150 feet high and 150
feet deep. You could go down winding stairs with a flashlight to
the depths if you wanted to. I don’t know as there was anybody
around or not. We went on our own I guess. (chuckle) I think it
was prior to Marconi. That was what I was brought up to believe,
that Tesla was first. Of course, there could have been someone
ahead of him, I don’t know.

No I don’t know when
or why they quit having a train out to Shoreham. I tell you who
would know all this if he was still here…Thomas Bayles. Oh yes,
absolutely, Thomas Bayles was an old beau. You didn’t know that?
Yes, he was killed up here near the County Center. The railroad
station was north and east of Old Country Road, after you come up
Randall Road. When the train stopped coming to Wading River, the
last stop then was at Port Jefferson. It used to stop at Rocky
Point and Shoreham and Wading River. I don’t remember Mount Sinai
being a stop.

I went to high
school in Richmond Hill because Uncle Asa lived near there I
suppose. Well I had no way of getting to Riverhead or Port
Jefferson (high school), either one. My father never had anything
but a horse. I had to go where I could get to one, and then I was
two miles from high school, two miles from it. I walked it every
day. It cost five cents to go on the trolley and I didn’t have five
cents! Unless the weather was awful awful bad, I did ever ride the
trolley, but not very often. It was five cents to go on Jamaica
Avenue to Richmond Hill, and that was a lot, yes it was.

Yes I came back to
the homeplace after I graduated from Richmond Hill, though I went
back for an extra half year. I didn’t pass, the weather report, oh
what do you call it? The study of weather. I failed it, so for
that extra half year I went back and lived with Uncle Charlie, who
had in the meantime moved from the Ridge to the corner of Benedict
Avenue and Jamaica Avenue, which was a block and a half from Uncle
Asa’s. Uncle Charlie was my father’s Uncle Charlie; he was my
grandmother’s younger brother. He had two daughters living home
with him and part of the time Charles Davis from Coram was there
too. He was studying law; I don’t know where he went to law school
but of course it was his grandfather that he was with. And once in
awhile I’d read law books to him, the most monotonous stuff you’d
ever read in your life. But one time I really got interested
telling a story of a case all the way through. And I finished and
he said, “You understood that, didn’t you?” And I said, “Yes that
made sense.” (chuckle) Oh yes, he became a lawyer, very famous, in
New York City. His mother was another of Charlie Randall’s
daughters, Nellie Randall Davis. And Nellie was my mother’s (Althea
Buckalew Randall) college roommate. That’s how my father (Orlando
“Bert” Randall) and mother met. She came out for a vacation with
her roommate to Coram and met my father, and then later she came out
to Ridge and taught. And that Ridge school is still there. Yes,
that’s the same one your grandmother (Alice Hammond Warner) taught
in, Jus. On 25 right near Randall Road across from the game farm.
(The school was moved to Longwood Estate in 1980.)

When I got out of
high school I taught school right away in West Yaphank. And that
was when I went with Thomas Bayles. He used to take me back and
forth, and he had a Maxwell car. Boy did we have a…Was it the car
or Thomas I liked? Well I liked Thomas’ mother more than him. She
really was a wonderful woman, I liked her ever so much. I remember
his father saying one time when I had called him Tom for some reason
or other, “His name is not Tom, his name is Thomas!” So he was
always Thomas after that. I notice the next generation called him
Tom. (chuckle) Well he came over quite faithfully every weekend
and took me back and forth. (After teaching about two years, Hazel
attended Geneseo for several months and received her teaching
certificate.)

My father’s father
and mother were both Randalls. His father’s father John and his
mother’s grandfather Jeffrey were brothers! (making them second
cousins, once removed) Same with the Wellses. We’re related no
matter; anybody who’s a Wells is a relative. My father was Orlando
Albertus Randall and his father was John Orlando Randall. My
father’s mother was Jemima Randall and her middle name was Benjamin
and where she got the Benjamin I don’t know.

How did some of the
family get to Queens? Uncle Charlie Randall kind of dabbled in real
estate. Uncle Asa lived in there because he worked for railway mail
service. How he got into it, I don’t know but that was what he
worked at for years. And he lived in Woodhaven so he could get to
his job. And he knew this place was for sale, just a couple of
blocks from where he lived. It was a big place, corner lot and big
house. And so Uncle Charlie and two of his daughters lived there
for quite awhile. He was really retired; he had money enough so he
didn’t have to do anything. Of these daughters, the youngest one
was Blanche. She never married and she was a wonderful girl. I
liked her very much. Some man wanted to marry her when she was
about thirty but she thought she was too old. To me she was
an old lady but I look back on it now, and she might better have
gotten married. And her older sister who got married was named
Cora. She married Sidney Conklin and they went to Australia to
live. Then they got divorced, never had any children. I can
remember I used to tease her, I don’t know why, just kiddish. She
liked evaporated milk in her coffee and I used to say, “Cousin Cora
Conklin likes canned cow.” (chuckle) She was back home living with
her father.

I lived on the third
floor. I did at Uncle Asa’s too. He had a third floor and it was
wonderful, ‘cause I was all alone and quiet so I could study (much
more than I did!). I had a room there. It really was fixed up so
you could have an apartment, with a kitchen and everything, but I
didn’t use anything but the one bedroom. Had a south window. It
was very nice, right in the treetops. No bathroom on the third
floor, had to go down to the second floor. Was the Jamaica Avenue
elevated at that time? Not as far out as that, I don’t remember
it’s being elevated.

I was born in Union
Course, a part of Woodhaven. And there used to be a racetrack,
that’s why it was called Course. My father was an architect and
builder and I can remember my sister Mildred and I taking our
husbands back there to see the house that we used to live in in
Union Course. We recognized it. After we turned off Jamaica
Avenue, we turned down and it was Third Street. We turned right and
somebody yelled, “You’re going the wrong way on a one-way street!”
When we lived there it was all open farmland; we never thought about
it being a one-way street. All around us had been farmland. It
wasn’t city then.

I was born on
February 23, 1895 but not in that house. Let me see, the next one
after me was born there, one of my little brothers. All six of us
were born in Woodhaven, except for Theron the last. Well, he wasn’t
called Malcom until the next generation. We called him Theron and
he had long curls way down to his shoulders. My mother curled his
hair just like she did mine ‘til he went to school. He had them
‘til he was six I’m sure. Yes it was normal for the times, it was
natural.

I was the second
child in our family. I had one brother older and another brother
just younger than I. They died within a week of each other when I
was five years old. Just after Christmas they died, of diphtheria.
Clarence (d. 12-27-1899) and Percy (d. 1-8-1900) and there are
pictures of them in the attic, the two of them together. I was the
only one left. (Hazel also had diphtheria) Then Mildred was born
(1901) and Kenneth (1904) and then Theron (1910).

When we were in
Ridge my sister Mildred was the only pupil in the Ridge school
district. So rather than hire a teacher for the one pupil they
hired my father to take her to Shoreham to school. So she went to
Shoreham, I don’t know for how long. Until they got more pupils in
Ridge I guess. When you look at the Ridge district now compared to
that, you can’t believe it!

And we used to have
Sunday School in the schoolhouse every Sunday afternoon. We walked
from the farm through the woods to the schoolhouse. My mother
played the organ, taught the Sunday School class, around 1908-14, I
think. All the hired helped used to come, as well as all the men
and women who lived in the town, their kids like Mildred. Your
grandmother, Jus, taught my father in that school. He said he went
to school to her days, and took her out nights. He dated your
grandmother while he was still in school; I don’t know when she
taught there, must be that my mother came to teach later.

When we lived in
Woodhaven, Union Course, we drove out to visit the Long Island
relatives with a horse and wagon. I don’t know how often we did
it. I remember we stopped at cousin Nellie Davis’ ‘cause that was
my mother’s roommate and also cousins of my father. And we stayed
there, oh, four or five days I guess. But then every day some
relatives would stop and we’d have a meal or they’d stay all night
or something or other. And I don’t know how far east we came, I
don’t remember, but I know we had plenty of nice trips with a horse
and wagon. And there must have been three children at least. So
you think that sounds like early pioneer days?! (chuckle)

When we lived at
Uncle Charlie’s farm I was going to ride horseback and we had
nothing but mules. So I got on muleback and the mule started off at
high speed, with me yelling I’ll tell you. And I had long hair at
that time, and hairpins and my hair went in every direction. My
father came after me and finally stopped the mule and I didn’t try
it again. Yes, it sounds like me on a bicycle seventy years later.
I have to try everything! I can remember it anyway!

My brother Kenneth
and sister Mildred walked, as they had done several times, from our
place to Uncle John’s and back which was probably a mile or so.
They were about four and seven. Halfway there they found some of
the cutest little kitties to play with. And they came home and my
mother wanted to bury them! They’d been playing with skunks,
and they thought they were kittens. (chuckle)

My father was a
Presbyterian and my mother Dutch Reform and when they moved into
Union Course there was neither church there. So they helped
establish a new church and it was a Baptist church and my father
built the church. As far as I know the old church is still there;
there’s a new church on the corner now, but the old, I think is
still there. Or was for a long time. So that’s how I got Baptist,
I was brought up a Baptist, I was baptized as one. My mother’s
father was a Dutch Reform minister and my father’s family went to
the Middle Island Presbyterian Church. It was five miles they had
to drive to church from the Ridge to Middle Island every morning.
With a horse, but they did it every Sunday.

My grandfather Rev.
William Dey Buckelew was the Dutch Reform minister and my
grandmother (Clarissa Ann Wampler Leaman Buckelew) became an
invalid. The only time I remember them living on the Island was
when my folks lived in Union Course, and she was an invalid then,
and lived with my mother and father. She was in a wheelchair for
then years and then she was in bed for ten more years. And my
mother took care of her. And my grandfather died while she was in
the wheelchair. I don’t remember what year it was. Yes I can just
remember him.

My mother had one sister and her name was Anna Louise. She married
Louis Denteman who was the high school principal in Staten Island
and they had one son Ernest; Anna Louise died when he was born. And
he and his father never got along too well because Uncle Louis was a
brilliant scholar and Ernest was not very interested in school. You
can imagine how that would set. But he married again. He married
Eloise something or other and she was real good to Ernest, brought
him up as her own. And the last time I saw him was when I was
California; I hunted him up and met him and his wife. He made me
think of my grandfather Buckelew! I hadn’t seen my grandfather in
years but he looked like him. He was my first cousin and I hadn’t
seen him or anybody for years. He had married, I don’t know but
he’d married twice. They’re both gone now, but I used to hear from
Ernest. I don’t have any idea what he did for a living.

My mother had just
the one sister. She had another sister who died earlier, as a
child. I found the stone. I’ve seen it…at Howe’s Cave, on top of
the cave. You had to go through somebody’s farm, up the farm road
to get to the cemetery. But when my mother was a child she used to
play in the cave in what was down below. This was in Schoharie. Oh
they weren’t commercialized yet. Of course they were there, they
knew the caves were there. My grandfather was the minister in
several towns around in that county. They used to change them
around once in awhile; like the Methodists they shifted them from
one to another.

In one church when I
went up there (you see, I traveled all this country when I was
president of the WCTU), I stayed overnight in the home of somebody
who knew my mother as a child. And she took me to the church where
my grandfather used to preach, and there was a plaque on the wall
with his name on it. They’ve taken the church down since, and
nobody knew anything about where the plaque went to. There wasn’t
anything left. If I’d only taken it right then or asked for it, I’m
sure I could have had it. The church was not going even when I
visited it. But the woman knew of it because she used to go there
with my mother as a child, and used to play with her.

Another one that my
mother used to say was one of her playmates in the caves was Jared
Van Wagnen. Remember he was there in Albany when we got the Century
Farm award in 1940, Ken? But he never heard of my mother in the
cave, didn’t remember. He wrote several books I
think…agricultural. Horse and Buggy Days, I think was one.

My mother came to
teach on Long Island after she met my father. As I said, her mother
was an invalid when they married. We always had a woman in the
house to help with the housework; my mother couldn’t take care of
her mother and the kids besides.

The ladder-back
chair you have? That was my Grandma Randall’s. I remember seeing
her sitting in that. Yes it could very well be that it dates to the
1700’s (as the one you’ve seen in the East Hampton Mulford
farmhouse).

My sister Mildred
died of cancer in Rome New York in February of 1954 when she was 52
years old. My father died in June 1954. He was 87, my mother was
78…the figures were reversed. She died in 1945 in Florida of a
stroke. She was in a coma for eight weeks, didn’t move, having a
needle in her arm giving her sustenance to keep her going. I took
care of her. When she died, Malcolm (Theron), Sylvia and Sonja were
there. It was Sunday, just before Christmas and they were down
apparently for the holidays. I was upstairs taking care of her, and
they were all down in the kitchen talking and laughing. And I
yelled down and I couldn’t make them hear, and I yelled finally at
the top of my lungs to Papa and he came up. I remember he threw
back the covers and opened all the windows, and I thought what in
the world is he doing? He was just, he didn’t know what he was
doing, you know. I remember we had a time getting her out. Do you
remember how narrow those stairs were, and steep, Ken? I didn’t
know if we were going to do it. There was no room to turn around.
Finally took her out through the bathroom. Yes, Papa built that
house there in Orlando, and he tried to make every inch count!

Hazel Randall
came to teach at the Northville School around 1914-15. She met and
married Kenneth L. Wells, a local farmer, and spent the remaining
seventy-plus years of her life as a Riverhead Town resident. She
died on January 29, 1988 following a year’s illness, a month short
of her ninety third birthday.